Sunday, May 19, 2013

When North Korea threatens to attack South Korea or fires
missiles into the sea, the press reports are typically accompanied by pictures
of military parades like the one below. I am wondering if I am the only
one struck by the contrast between the missile pointing skyward and the
decrepit truck underneath. Once again it is clear that North Korea only spends
money on what its leadership cares about, so the best they have of trucks (and
trucks can be used to carry food and other useful tasks) is far inferior to
their missiles.

Through economic isolation and diplomatic pressure, many
nations are trying to make North Korea back off from its program of developing
nuclear warheads, re-starting nuclear reactors and fuel processing facilities,
and improving missiles. But one might ask, what is the point? The knowledge on
how to make nuclear warheads and missiles and operate nuclear reactors is already
there. Stopping the program just means a pause; it can be re-started any time
the leadership pleases. In fact, there is talk they are planning to re-start a nuclear
reactor that was idled in an earlier treaty. So, it would appear that North
Korea can give no credible promise that a stop will be permanent, which
suggests that other nations cannot reward it for stopping either.

To see why it still makes sense to call for a stop, we need to talk about
violins for a moment. In a paper in Organization Science, Gino Cattani, Roger
Dunbar, and Zur Shapira discuss why nobody makes violins like the peak period Cremona
violins anymore, although they are now seen as the best instruments that exist. These
are the violins made by Stradivari and Guernari that are owned by the
richest and played by the best (usually on loan; the richest and the best are
different people). Current violin makers can get close to their
sound, but they cannot reproduce it. Why can't these violins be made anymore?
Cattani and coauthors point out that they became famous for their sound much
later than their actual creation, as a result of music performance
moving from small spaces in courts to larger concert halls or outdoor
performances.That condition, which is
how top-of-the-range violins are used now, is where they are superior.

But something happened on the way to fame: the
masters building the violins died and their workshops stopped producing them.
Molds and some other technical knowledge persisted, but tacit knowledge
disappeared. This tacit knowledge has proven impossible to recover completely,
even by violin makers who have significant experience maintaining Cremona
violins. It has something to do with wood selection, preparation, and varnish, and how to use those in combination.

Now let us go back to disarmament. It is clear that much
technical knowledge and documentation can be preserved from a nuclear program
and a missile program, and some machinery can be kept in working order. But even
today, making highly complex items call for tacit knowledge. If tacit knowledge is not used, it
will decline, and the ability to re-start the program will gradually wither
away. So there is merit in stopping, even if there is no credible promise of
re-starting. Indeed, it would not be surprising if North Korea encountered
difficulties in re-starting its idle nuclear reactor.

Postscript: I am aware of the research showing that a sampleof modern violinists chose a modern violin over a Stradivarius. It might
suggest that there is some brand value embedded in the experiences that
violinists and listeners get from a Stradivarius. But it could also be because
playing a violin in an Indianapolis hotel meeting room wearing welding goggles
is not an ideal way to assess a violin that plays best in concert halls.